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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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One gets the sense that they did it as a provocation, and to rub it in his eyes.

That's a confirmed fact, because after the whole legal and wide-covered story, they went back and did it again, this time for gender transition. One can plausibly claim it is random event - it is a vendetta and an attempt to establish a precedent and make an example of him.

how far a genuine right-wing government can be allowed to travel before it gets blocked by the establishment.

I expect not very far, unless they manage to rein in the Supreme Court, which has been very activist (to the left) for years and has not been shy to intervene politically. And which the left is not shy at all to use as a bludgeon to override any policy they don't like. That said, the traditional left in Israel right now is kinda in shambles politically after their "New Middle East" project obviously fizzled out, and no there's no long-term solution to the issue that anybody in Israel believes in. So the contention is now more along religious/secular lines, with secularists kinda aligning with American Left, but not entirely (there are wokes among them, but they are really in minority, most of them would be somewhere around moderate Republicans by American standards).